That is true. I was just joking about the shoulder mount. He is the nicest buck I have ever seen in the woods. My dad and me are still SICK about his terrible shot to begin with. No animal deserves to suffer. On the same note, he appears to be doing ok. I will know more when I see him in person and see how he walks, moves, and his overall demeanor now that he is wounded. One thing is for sure, that has got to HURT like HELL. Deer are natural prey and have evolved as such. I only hope their bodies have ways of dealing with these types of things that we people might not understand, as far as numbing the pain, healing, etc.

Thanks for your post. I just hope he survives the other hunters hunting around me and I hope I get to see him again in person.

No question, take the shot. That choice was made with the first shot. Finish what you started. You owe that deer a clean death, not a maggot filled one. I would finish what you started without a second thought. Screw the mount!

The only real difference between a good tracker and a bad tracker is observation. All the same data is present for both. The rest is understanding what you are seeing.

I picked up that you were joking about the shoulder mount. Obviously, you'll take the shot if you see him again. I'm not sold on the idea that this deer is doomed to a painful death though. He looks darn good to me and the wound looks fairly clean. Other deer will lick that wound and keep it clean and healing. I've seen them do it.

Two true stories to make you feel better:

Several years ago I was casting a scum frog over a farm pond weed bed and caught a huge bass. Big 'ol sow belly! I planned to release her but I wanted a photo. My camera was up at my truck so I ran a nylon stringer through her lip (away from the gills) and shoved the sharp end into the bank. Stupid! As soon as I stood up she swooshed out to the deep water and ripped the stringer out of the mud. I was sick about it because I knew she was going to die a slow death. Then over three months later I was fishing the same pond and caught a big but sluggish bass. As I lifted it into my canoe, my hand came up against the nylon stringer! She was a little thin but still strong enough to take a spinnerbait. I gently removed the stringer and released her. Never did get a photo.

A year before that, a buddy took a bad shot on a decent buck during early bow season, right before dark. He did not see the arrow hit but he heard it and tracked a sparse blood trail before losing it. He felt terrible. Then, in the heart of the rut he was rattling from a stand, nearly a mile from where he had wounded the buck. Suddenly a nice buck came charging down a hardwood hillside to investigate the rattling. My buddy said it looked like the deer had a flag above its head. It was not until the deer was in range that my friend realized that the flag was actually the veins of his old arrow, that had lodged behind the buck's jawbone over a month earlier! He made a belated second shot and killed the buck. On inspection, the buck was fully healthy, with only slight inflammation around the wound.

Cool stories. Just proves how strong the will to survive is by the animals. Me or you would probably die of pain and shock with a wound like that, but these animals push through it.

I can't wait to get back into the woods. Thanks for reading the post. I hope my bad experience helps educate hunters. I searched google over and over trying to find stories of deer who survived similar wounds. Now, there is atleast this story for people to reference to.

Cool stories. Just proves how strong the will to survive is by the animals. Me or you would probably die of pain and shock with a wound like that, but these animals push through it.

I'd agree... a human would have a much harder time dealing with this kind of wound because we aren't equipped to deal with it. That's what I don't get about groups like PETA and other anti-hunters that think we are torturing these animals we hunt. While I'm sure it's not comfortable for the deer to deal with injuries that don't result in clean kills, I don't believe they are agonizing over them. We associate that type of pain with the emotional aspect of it... I don't believe that deer have the capability to understand what's going on and feel bad about it... they just act on their survival instincts.

"When a hunter is in a tree stand with high moral values and with the proper hunting ethics and richer for the experience, that hunter is 20 feet closer to God." ~Fred Bear

Deer are definitely resilient. This year I shot a young buck with my bow. I use an expandable broadhead, NAP Killzone COC. When I took the shot, I knocked the deer over onto its back and it kicked a few times before getting up. It looked to be a decent shot, but maybe a little high. There was a lot of blood on the side of the deer as it ran off. As it was leaving it staggered and I heard it fall again just out of sight. I waited an hour before getting down to retrieve it. To my surprise the deer wasn't there when I got to the spot. I tracked it, along with my brother, for what seemed to be quite a distance only for the blood trail to disappear. The blood trail was good at first and then became nothing. I never found the deer. It was very disappointing.

I say this because the deer you speak of could in fact recover from the shot especially where it was hit. It's disappointing when things like this happen. Good luck to you in the remainder of the season.